Intro to Midwest Nice

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What is Midwestern Nice? It’s the caricature of cheerful politeness, the friendly demeanor, the “Fargo” and opes and you-betches, that make for great kitschy merchandise but perhaps lack substance. Look long instead. Take a steadfast gaze at the windswept landscape, the shifting seasons, and the midwesterner planted within its confines, bent to his or her work. Listen to the stories they’ll give up gladly, but pay closer attention to what is left unsaid.

Each tale, story, or yarn you’ll find here is a glimpse into the quiet moments, the soft moments, that compound to construct an unhurried existence. It is an examination of the pleasant and peculiar, the splendid and sorrowful, the joyful and the absurd that make up the mundane but the meaningful.

I hope these essays will be a place of respite and reflection, a break and invitation to do what we seldom have time or space for—to be stilled and to think. May these stories entertain and calm your scroll-weary nerves, may you delight in their scenes and blend into their nature bound settings. Above all, may they articulate the inner thoughts of this Midwesterner, and give voice to the unspoken.

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